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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25461883">Petrichor</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazywonderland/pseuds/lazywonderland'>lazywonderland</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Harry, Bottom Draco, Break Up, Draco Malfoy POV, Getting Back Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Potion-Maker Draco, Quidditch Player Harry Potter, Riding, Smut, Top Harry, but like......it be that way sometimes, there's a little little bit of toxic vibes going on here, what's new tho lmao</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:27:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>12,368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25461883</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazywonderland/pseuds/lazywonderland</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Breakups hurt, especially when you're still in love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>85</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>877</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Petrichor</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi, friends! I really wanted to explore a twenty-something Draco dealing with some difficult questions about love and intimacy and the inevitably tumultuous, volatile nature of an adult relationship between himself and Harry. I enjoyed writing it so much, and I hope you guys enjoy reading it. ♡</p><p>Petrichor is the distinct, earthy smell that follows rainfall after a long dry period.</p><p>Update: <a href="https://lazywonderlvnd.tumblr.com/post/627263899913355265/hi-i-love-your-fic-petrichor-would-you-ever">here</a> you can find a related drabble.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by J. K. Rowling. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.</b>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em><strong>" </strong>I wish you'd hold me when I turn my back</em><br/>
<em>The less I give the more I get back</em><br/>
<em>Oh your hands can heal, your hands can bruise</em><br/>
<em>I don't have a choice but I'd still choose you <strong>"</strong></em>
</p><p>
  <em>- <strong>The Civil Wars</strong></em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>i.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The girl that Harry's with isn't anyone Draco knows.</p><p>He thinks it’s probably one of Weasley's friends from work, or perhaps she’s just a stranger who’d caught his eye. Most people at the pub are here for Weasley's birthday, but not all of them. She's pretty — long dark hair and dark eyes, a nice smile. Her body language says she likes him, and his says he likes her as well. His smile is as careless and charming as always, humbly unaware of his own attractiveness, not just because he's annoyingly fit but because his personality draws people in. He is vitality and warmth and goodness, and Draco has spent the last two months feeling an acute lack of those things in his life.</p><p>From across the room Harry catches his eye suddenly and Draco sees the careless smile on his face falter. Like he’d forgotten Draco existed until just now. Like the reminder is an unwelcome one. He returns his attention to the girl and gestures to the outdoor area where even more people are gathered, sipping drinks and laughing and crisping their lungs with cigarettes. She takes his hand and follows him out there. There are a dozen calluses on Harry’s hands that he knows she must feel, and he wonders if later she’ll feel them elsewhere on her body as well. </p><p>He’s managed this whole time to keep himself convinced ending things was the right choice. They hadn’t been going anywhere, they’d just fought all the time when they weren’t fucking, but it still feels shit to see Harry with someone else. And frankly it makes him sick to his stomach to think about Harry fucking her later. To think about him fucking anyone, really. </p><p>"You could at least <em> pretend </em> to be having fun, Draco," says Hermione, sidling up and nudging him with her elbow. And in a lower voice, "You know you didn’t have to come. Ron’s got more than enough people here."</p><p>"Why wouldn’t I want to come?" he asks tonelessly, not looking at her. He lifts his drink to his lips and sighs when he realises it’s empty.</p><p>"Of course, my apologies. I forgot you're still acting like nothing’s wrong."</p><p>Draco turns a subdued sneer on her before looking away again. He hates the smugness in her voice. Some part of him recognises it isn't <em> actually </em> smugness, Hermione is hardly the person to revel in anyone's misery, but he still hates it. He hates that she knows he's been a wreck for two months, that any time she comes over for a visit she looks at him like he imagines she would look at an animal she wishes she could help but can't. It's easy to forget sometimes that <em> he's </em>the one who'd broken up with Harry, not the other way around.</p><p>Harry's moved on, at least. Quickly enough that Draco's come to the conclusion their two-year relationship meant bollocks to him.</p><p>"Who is she?" he asks, gaze stuck on the exit Harry and his new girlfriend just disappeared through.</p><p>"Who, the girl he's with?"</p><p>Draco nods.</p><p>"I'm not sure," says Hermione, shrugging. "I've never seen her before. Just someone he met here, I guess."</p><p>"Not one of Weasley's mates from the Ministry?"</p><p>Hermione looks at him and he looks back at her, lifting an eyebrow, waiting to see if she'll say whatever it is she's clearly thinking.</p><p>She does.</p><p>"You need to stop this, Draco," she says, her voice a warning. "I'm serious. <em> You </em> ended things and you broke Harry's heart and it's messing him up having to watch you do whatever this is you're doing, collapsing in on yourself in a vortex of self-pity. Enough is enough."</p><p>Draco laughs bitterly. "How I wish you'd quit trying to convince me he gives a shit."</p><p>"You know you can be really despicable sometimes," she says. There's hurt in her eyes, like he's disappointed her. There's no one else in the bloody <em> world </em>who could have forced him to feel that bitter-acid guilt when all he wants to do is hate her, hate Harry, hate the whole sodding world for having the audacity to continue when he feels like this. </p><p>"That must explain why he's happy to be rid of me, then," says Draco, savagely glad for the look of disgusted disappointment Hermione gives him before walking away. She goes to Weasley, who is surrounded by friends and drops an arm across her shoulders when she stands next to him. They are everything he and Harry never managed to figure out, stable and congruous and easy. </p><p>Then again, he doesn't think he'd have fallen in love in the first place if it had been easy.</p><p>Perhaps there is no winning for him. Perhaps that's his karmic retribution.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>ii.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Draco?"</p><p>He's sprawled out on his back on the sitting room sofa next to the open window, oversized and letting in pellets of rain through the screen, but he'd have been able to hear her even if he'd been locked in his bedroom. Her voice carries.</p><p>He wonders not for the first time why he doesn't start making a habit of locking his front door.</p><p>There's a cigarette between his lips and he doesn't bother answering Pansy's enquiry, making the childish decision to let her wander around looking for him in the dim light given off by dozens of candles. He prefers them to the Muggle electric lights Harry had forcibly introduced him to, which usually just serve to give him a headache.</p><p>"I see your smoke," she says, suddenly right behind the sofa. He watches her come around the side and then sit down in the armchair next to it. "Hermione fire-called me."</p><p>He rolls his eyes and continues staring at the ceiling and smoking and saying nothing.</p><p>"Don't you think maybe you've been brooding long enough?" she asks. "I mean, <em> really</em>, leaving Weasley's party just because you see Harry with some bird ... what did you expect him to do, Draco, take a vow of abstinence? You broke up with him."</p><p>The cigarette finds his lips again, gaze never moving. It sizzles loudly in the dark when he takes a deep drag.</p><p>"And since when do you smoke those filthy Muggle things in here anyway, or this frequently for that matter?" she demands. "Hermione tells me they're terrible for you."</p><p>"Since I don’t care anymore if I live or die."</p><p>The cigarette is snatched deftly out of his fingers and Draco releases a sigh through his nose, irritated and yet too lethargic to be properly mad about it.</p><p>"Merlin’s fucking tits, Pansy, I’m taking the piss," he drawls, sitting up finally and reaching for the pack sitting on the coffee table for a new one. "Do lighten up, won't you?"</p><p>"It's you who needs to lighten up, Draco." Her voice carries no note of teasing, just that belligerently sombre reproachfulness he's begun to detest. She's spent too much time with Hermione these last couple years. "This is really getting out of hand."</p><p>He merely rolls his eyes again as he sticks the new cigarette in his mouth and grabs his wand from the end table to light it.</p><p>"Can't you even <em> talk </em>to me?" She puts the one she stole from him out in an ashtray on the coffee table. "It's been two months and we've still never even discussed what happened, you're just perpetually in a foul mood."</p><p>"I don't understand what it is you want me to say," says Draco, smoke drifting from his mouth and nose. Her face fills with frustrated colour but for once she says nothing, only continues watching him. He can feel her looking at his slightly hollow cheeks and the dark circles beneath his eyes. He hasn't slept much, nor has he had an appetite. "You know you and Hermione act as though I've been forcing my company on you. If I'm so miserable to be around lately why don't the two of you quit checking up on me? I assure you, I wouldn't mind."</p><p>"You stupid prat," Pansy says darkly, leaning back into the armchair. Her eyes glitter in the low light, one leg crossed primly over the other, letting him know in their preferred mode of communication (silence) that she isn't going to be deterred by his obstinance. Hermione might have gotten sick of it finally but Pansy's known him too long. They've seen too much of one another. She isn't leaving any time soon.</p><p>He stands up and goes over to the window and opens the screen.</p><p>"I STILL LOVE HARRY POTTER!" he screams into the night, enunciating the words, shredding his lungs with it. He feels the rain pelting his face, sees people walking below with their umbrellas up, a fair number of them clearly repelling it. It's London, but it's an area densely populated by witches and wizards.</p><p>"Nobody gives a shit!" somebody yells back at him.</p><p>He turns back to Pansy, who has an eyebrow raised in disdain.</p><p>"Happy?" he says.</p><p>"What am I supposed to have learnt from that exactly?"</p><p>"You said you wanted me to talk to you."</p><p>Her shapely eyebrows come together. She looks unimpressed.</p><p>"You wanted me to know you still love him," she says, reiterating as if for confirmation.</p><p>Draco shrugs, sitting on the windowsill now with his back to the rain. His dark cotton long-sleeve shirt is soaked through almost instantly. He flicks his thumb and an accumulation of ash at the end of the cigarette falls into a puddle.</p><p>"And you wanted them to know too," she adds, gesturing out the window.</p><p>"Sure, why not?"</p><p>Pansy watches him, looks him over with an utterly impassive expression. He doesn't know what she's thinking, but it doesn't matter. She'll tell him when she decides to. In the meantime he puffs at the cigarette, watching her back, thinking suddenly of a night four months ago in early November when he and Harry had been sitting on the sofa looking through a list of potions Draco brought home from work. The apothecary he works for handles some of the strangest requests he's ever seen, often requiring him to do research at home. It had been pouring that night too, and they'd had the windows open because Harry liked the way it smelled when it rained. He'd been laughing himself into a fit at his own jokes, coming up with ludicrous scenarios behind the potions being ordered. He hadn't been wearing his glasses, and when he'd laughed hard enough to cry it made his eyes so green that Draco's heart had ached with it.</p><p>"If you know you still love him," Pansy says finally, pulling him out of the memory, "then <em> why </em>did you break up with him?"</p><p>"It wasn't working," he says simply.</p><p>"Meaning ...?"</p><p>"Meaning we fought constantly," he tells her sharply. He realises he's squeezing the cigarette hard enough to have dented the filter and consciously relaxes. "It's all we ever did."</p><p>"Two years is a long time to be together if all you ever did was fight."</p><p>"At the end," he clarifies, and flicks the finished cigarette out the window. He reaches for another. "The last six months we couldn't go a day without bickering about something."</p><p>"And did you try and talk about that?" she asks. Her face says she already knows the answer.</p><p>"What is there to talk about exactly? The fact that we clearly don't belong in a relationship?" He pulls as much smoke as he can tolerate into his lungs and holds it there a few seconds, letting his eyes water. It burns when he blows it out. "Anyway he's obviously not too bothered about it."</p><p>Pansy actually laughs in what looks like disbelief. Draco scowls at her. "And you've come to this conclusion by ... what, watching him flirt with someone at a pub on Weasley's birthday?"</p><p>"He hasn't tried to talk to me," Draco retorts. His chest is tight suddenly, and his eyes are wet again but not from the cigarette. "He did <em> one time </em>a week after we ended it, and I didn't answer and he never tried again."</p><p>He pulls a leg up on the sill and wraps an arm around it, pressing his cheek against a bony knee.</p><p>"Do I really need to point out," she says softly, "that you haven't tried to talk to him either?"</p><p>"No," he says without moving. </p><p>"And?"</p><p>"And that's not how it works," he tells her, lifting his head and dropping his chin on his knee instead. The other leg hangs limply from the sill, stockinged foot not quite reaching the floor. The cigarette smolders between his fingers, momentarily forgotten. "It's on him. He knows that."</p><p>"That doesn't make any sense," she argues, "<em>you </em> broke up with <em> him</em>."</p><p>Draco rolls his eyes and lifts a hand to wipe pitifully at the wetness in them with his shirtsleeve.</p><p>"It's just how we are," he says quietly, and then, with a sick feeling, corrects himself: "How we <em> were</em>."</p><p>"Well I think you're being a stupid git," she informs him with lifted brows.</p><p>"Great, does that mean you'll leave then?"</p><p>She takes in a deep breath, but after a moment she does indeed stand up. He feels simultaneously relieved and disappointed. The company is good for keeping him out of his head, although he supposes the point is defeated when she won't stop yapping on about all of it.</p><p>"How long will you be doing this?" she asks.</p><p>He meets her eyes steadily, letting her see the resentment he feels for the question.</p><p>"Collapsing in on myself in a vortex of self-pity, you mean?" he says facetiously.</p><p>"Is that what Hermione's calling it? Apt."</p><p>Draco sneers at her and says nothing.</p><p>"Well," she says with some finality, "I'm seeing Blaise and Theo for dinner tomorrow, let me know if you have any interest in joining us, I s'pose."</p><p>"I don't."</p><p>Pansy rolls her eyes. "Right," she says, "in that case I'll see you whenever you decide to emerge from your cave of nihilism then."</p><p>He locks the door behind her when she leaves.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>iii.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>He recognises Harry's voice the moment he steps out of the Floo into Ron and Hermione's flat. It's coming from the kitchen, deep and indistinct but clearly animated as he usually is around his best friends.</p><p>"I'm so sorry, Draco, I had no <em> idea </em>Ron asked him to come over," Hermione says in an urgent whisper. She looks genuinely distressed and he has no trouble believing her, but that doesn't make the situation any better. "I tried to get an owl to you. I wish you would just get a cell phone!"</p><p>Before he can answer he hears Weasley calling from the kitchen: "Was that Malfoy, Hermione?"</p><p>And not a moment later, this time in Harry's voice: "<em>What</em>?"</p><p>"Oh, <em> really </em> good," Draco seethes, spinning to find the small ornate bowl on the mantel where he knows they keep their Floo powder. "God, you're engaged to a fucking —"</p><p>"Malfoy, there you are," comes Weasley's voice, in the actual room now. And on the heels of that, "Hey, whoa, where're you going, you just got here!"</p><p>"Are you half-troll or something, Weasley?" Draco snaps, trying to keep his voice low but he knows he hasn't fully succeeded. He feels like taking his wand out and hexing him right here in his own sitting room, damn the consequences. "Your inexhaustible supply of stupidity consistently leaves me in awe of you."</p><p>He has his fingers in the powder when Harry finally joins them, verdant eyes finding Draco and settling there. His hands are shoved modestly into the pockets of his jeans and there's a look on his face like he knows it was audacious to come in here, yet he'd done it anyway. Draco misses him so fiercely in this moment that he allows himself a brief fantasy where he goes over there and lets Harry wrap him up in one of those big stupid bear hugs he'd always loved so much. He gets the unsettling feeling Harry knows exactly what's going on in his head just as clearly as if he'd written it out on a piece of parchment for him.</p><p>"Shove it, Malfoy," Weasley says without much venom. "You two need to talk and you weren't doing it on your own, so."</p><p>"Ron," Hermione admonishes him gently, "I told you a million times, you can't force —"</p><p>"Clearly he can do whatever the hell he likes," Draco snipes at her. She looks sad and exhausted and he feels a nauseating pang of guilt once again. Harry still hasn't said anything. He's just staring, brow slightly creased, as if he's trying to work something out. The only thing more unbearable than avoiding that heavy gaze, Draco thinks, would be meeting it. "Mind your fucking business, Weasley." And, turning to Hermione again, "We can go over that list this weekend. I'm leaving."</p><p>"Draco, please," says Hermione, a real note of desperation in her tone. "I need a licensed Potions-Maker to sign off on these papers by tomorrow and you're the <em> only </em> one I could get on short notice who's brewed each of them more than twice."</p><p>"I'll leave," says Harry suddenly. Draco feels a little as if his windpipe is being squeezed. "It's fine, I have practise in an hour anyway."</p><p>"Harry —" Ron starts, but Harry cuts him off.</p><p>"Ron," he says, "come on. Leave it. This wasn't cool."</p><p>He returns to the kitchen and comes back out with his worn Quidditch duffel looped over his shoulder. He's effortlessly handsome in his dumb Muggle band T-shirt and his faded denims, dark red shoes he calls '<em>Converse</em>' on his feet.</p><p>"I'll see you guys later," he says to Ron and Hermione, and he spares Draco once last searching glance before he's out the door, opting for Apparition instead of the Floo apparently. Draco realises his hand is still in the bowl and takes it out, then replaces it on the mantel. </p><p>"Why d'you have to be like that?" says Weasley, rounding on him.</p><p>"I was just wondering the same about you, Weasel."</p><p>"Okay, enough," says Hermione, putting a calming hand on Draco's arm. "Come on, let me get those papers for you to look over."</p><p>"I just don't understand why you two can't talk," Weasley persists. Hermione heaves a small sigh.</p><p>"Merlin, how many times do I have to explain this to you people?" Draco bites out. It's only been a week since Pansy had expressed the same sentiment. "There's nothing to talk about. He and I don't work, end of story. It's really that simple. He'll be much happier with his new friend from the pub, I'm sure."</p><p>"Who, Melanie?" Weasley scoffs. "The one from my birthday? Don't be stupid, Malfoy, he'll be finished with that in another week at most."</p><p>There's a sinking sensation in his chest, realising too late he hadn't actually been prepared to hear that his suspicions were correct.</p><p>"So he is sleeping with her," Draco confirms. Weasley looks suddenly unsure of himself and Hermione's shooting him a glare.</p><p>"Well yeah, but ..." He falters, clearly trying to salvage the situation. "I mean it's ... it's like I said, it's just shagging, Malfoy, I just meant —"</p><p>"All right, we're done here, I think," Hermione interjects, and finally he stops speaking. His face is a bit red. "Would you please put some tea on for us, Ron?"</p><p>"Yeah," Weasley says gruffly, hand going to the back of his neck. "Er — sorry, Malfoy."</p><p>Finding that he has nothing else to say, Draco merely shakes his head and follows Hermione, wishing bitterly he'd never brought up the subject.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>iv.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Hermione's office in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is roomy enough but certainly not large, although Draco anticipates that changing soon. She's been promoted thrice already since she started just a year after their graduation from Hogwarts, an absolute Ministry darling and well-deservedly. The Ministry has seen real, tangible change thanks to her Gryffindorian lust for justice.</p><p>"If it's more potions you need signed off on it'll have to wait," he says, leg bouncing where it's crossed over his knee. She’d owled him to come meet her just after he’d left work. "You wouldn't <em> believe </em>the number of orders we received over the weekend, I'll be up all night just trying to figure out a schedule."</p><p>He neglects to mention he'd have been up all night anyway. Mostly because she already knows. He hasn't slept properly in weeks and it shows more every day.</p><p>"The Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes always sees a rise in cases around this time of year," she says, tickling her chin with the feather of her quill in thought. "Spring, I guess. Coming out of winter makes people act weird. Just do me a favour and let me know if you see anything <em> especially </em>odd come your way." Highly unlikely, but he doesn't tell her that. "And no, it's not another list, I was actually hoping you might be able to help us identify something down in the Auror offices. They found the strangest thing on a raid the other day inside a cauldron —" She breaks off when there's a knock on her door, and a moment later Harry opens it and stops short when he sees Draco.</p><p>"Oh, shit," he says ineloquently. "I — sorry. I brought you ..." He lifts a bag he's holding that looks to be from a restaurant. Bloody unbelievable, Draco thinks. He's brought her dinner.</p><p>Draco pins Hermione with a fierce look and she lifts her hands in defence, the utter shock on her face enough to convince him she hadn't done this.</p><p>"That was so sweet, Harry, thank you," she says, getting up from her desk and going to take it from him. Draco keeps his gaze resolutely down on his lap.</p><p>"It's no problem," Harry assures her, "I was on my way home and you said you were gonna be here late, so."</p><p>There's a moment of silence in which Draco assumes they're communicating with their eyes. He refuses to look up and check.</p><p>"Draco." It's Harry's voice, and it gives him goosebumps. He swallows hard and doesn't answer. "Can we talk for a second?"</p><p>"No," Draco says without looking at him.</p><p>"Right, well I only phrased it as a question to be polite. We're talking, now. I'm serious."</p><p>Draco laughs sardonically, picking at nonexistent dust on his sleeve. Still not looking.</p><p>"Harry," Hermione tries quietly, only to be spoken over —</p><p>"Quit acting like a petulant child, Draco," Harry says. "You broke my fucking heart, you owe me this."</p><p>"Oh, that's really hysterical," Draco says brusquely and looks up at him finally, steeling himself against his own weak will where Harry's concerned. "And I suppose someone held you at wand-point and kept you from trying to talk to me before now?"</p><p>"You told me to fuck off, Draco! And I did try if you recall, <em> twice</em>. Both times you ignored me."</p><p>"It was once —"</p><p>"It was <em> twice</em>," Harry repeats curtly. He gestures to the door. "Now can we go out there and talk, please?"</p><p>Draco looks over at Hermione, whom he'd momentarily forgotten was present. She looks extremely uncomfortable and he even manages to feel bad she's been caught in the middle of this. He's at war with himself, part of him desperately wishing he could Apparate away from this situation even as another part of him wants nothing more than to go out there and fight with Harry, because at least it'll be <em> something</em>.</p><p>"Fine," he says, standing from the chair and brushing past Harry out of the office, into an open area with cubicles. Harry closes the door behind them. It's not exactly private but it's late enough that everyone other than some maintenance staff and a few other stragglers are still around. He looks at Harry and Harry looks at him and a hundred unspoken things pass between them, leaving Draco feeling stripped bare and vulnerable. For as expressive a person as Harry is, it's difficult right now to know what he's thinking.</p><p>"You look terrible, Draco," he says. Draco laughs, harsh and bitter. He leans back against the wall and crosses his arms, letting his eyes stray elsewhere.</p><p>"Thanks, Potter."</p><p>"You're not eating." Not a question. He's merely stating that he knows this to be a fact. Draco has always found Harry's way of doing that to be severely destabilising. It's as if he's trying to focus and Harry keeps snapping his fingers, drawing his attention. "Or sleeping."</p><p>"I thought we were s'posed to be talking," says Draco bitingly. He meets Harry's eyes again and it's like a hex to the gut. "So far all you've done is point out a bunch of shit I already know."</p><p>"Yeah, because I don't fucking get it," says Harry desperately. He looks angry but that's just on the surface. Beneath it is the helplessness, the anguish, the concern that's apparently been eating him alive. Draco gets a sick sort of pleasure in knowing that Harry's been worried about him, noticing things, thinking about him. He wonders suddenly if Harry's thought about him when he's fucking what's-her-name. "You told me you were over it. Over <em> me</em>. You said you were sick of being with me, that it was making you unhappy."</p><p>"It was," says Draco quietly. It's not the whole truth, though. It isn't that black and white. Between them it never could be.</p><p>"Then what the hell are you doing, Draco?" He sounds pleading now. "What the fuck is all this, why are you acting this way?"</p><p>"I'm not <em> acting </em>any way."</p><p>Harry pushes a hand through his hair, glancing up at the ceiling as if to pray for patience.</p><p>"Look," he says with a forced calm, "I don't know what this is, I really fucking don't, but clearly something's wrong and I feel like it's my fault." Draco looks away again, unable to face all that very real guilt and worry in Harry's eyes. He knows he's not lying, not being chivalrous or dramatic — he truly believes he's done something wrong. And it's only Harry who could make that sort of unaffected, utterly genuine integrity seem charming in the most heartbreaking way. "Give me <em> something</em>, Draco. Tell me what to do, I can't figure out what you want."</p><p>"I want you to fuck off," says Draco, eyes fixed on a nearby cubicle where he can see moving photographs of someone's family spelled to the walls. "I thought I already told you that."</p><p>There's some part of him that doesn't know why he's still doing this. Why he's pushing Harry away when he's trying so hard to communicate, destroying the assumption Draco's been clinging to with such savage, miserable satisfaction that their two years together had meant nothing to him. What he does know is that all his reasons for ending things in the first place are still true: they'd fought constantly, they had completely different ways of communicating, they liked too many different things, the list went on. So it doesn't matter, really, that he misses Harry so much he can hardly breathe sometimes, or that Harry's worried about him and maybe even still hurting a little bit too. Eventually they'll both move on and be better for it. His father had once told him that if it was painful you'd know it was the right decision.</p><p>Harry exhales a deep sigh. "I still don't understand what changed," he says, his voice having taken on a note of defeat. "We were so good, Draco."</p><p>"We weren't," Draco counters immediately. "You'll be much happier with Melody or Melinda or whatever her name is."</p><p>Harry's silent and Draco looks up to see his expression, which is again unreadable.</p><p>"Melanie," he corrects him finally. Draco feels sick. "Did Ron tell you about her?"</p><p>It's all the evidence he needs to know he's right, Harry's dating her, or at least well enough on the way.</p><p>"Doesn't really matter," Draco says. He pushes off the wall and throws on the cloak he's been carrying over his arm. "If that's all, I should be getting home."</p><p>"So what happens now, then?"</p><p>Draco looks at him but says nothing. He knows perfectly well what Harry means but he gets a venomous pleasure out of making him say it.</p><p>"Are we never speaking again?" he asks, staring at Draco with those sorrowful green eyes. "Will you refuse to be anywhere near me, pack up and leave any time I show up somewhere?"</p><p>Draco only shrugs. His stomach is in knots and all he wants to do is go home and light a cigarette and cry.</p><p>"I can't live with that, Draco," Harry tells him, brutally honest, sickeningly blunt. "I can't not see you."</p><p>"We're not friends, Harry," he says quietly. Harry looks like he's just been slapped. "We never <em> were </em> friends. We despised each other and then we started fucking and it was amazing and we thought that was enough for a relationship and it wasn't. We're nothing alike. I don't <em> like </em> you, I liked fucking you. I liked ... I liked how you doted on me." He <em> had </em>liked the way Harry doted on him; it was a singularly exquisite feeling to have Harry Potter's undivided attention, an experience that had at times been so intensely and unrelentingly intimate Draco had thought for sure it would kill him. But the rest is a lie. "We couldn't keep being in a relationship that was parchment-thin."</p><p>"You told me you loved me," says Harry.</p><p>"And I also told you a million times that night, I was unhappy when we were together. I hated the fighting, I hated that ..." He trails off before he says anything too honest, something Harry can latch onto like a metaphorical foot in the door and use it to pry the rest out of him. His resolve is only strengthened when he remembers that Harry's already seeing someone new. Even if some part of him had been tempted to give in, there's no point. One thing he knows for sure is that he can't be <em> friends </em> with Harry. He can't watch him with somebody else. "We're not dating anymore and we're not friends," he repeats. "And I don't <em> want </em>to be friends with you. It would be too weird now. I'm sorry, Harry, you'll have to learn to live with it, I guess."</p><p>Harry stares at him a moment. "I loved you with everything inside of me," he says eventually. Like it costs him <em> nothing</em>. Like saying it is the most natural thing in the world, when just the simplified version is an obstacle for Draco. It reminds him again why they can't be together — Harry needs someone who can match his intensity, and although Draco very much wants to let himself drown in it, he knows it's far better to have a mediocre relationship than to have one with so many terrifying unknowns. His instinct tells him to get out of the water now before he swims too deep and regrets it.</p><p>And Harry could never understand that.</p><p>"I loved you too," Draco tells him. "And then I realised I didn't anymore."</p><p>"That doesn't just suddenly happen."</p><p>"You don't have to understand it," says Draco quietly. "You just have to respect it." And a moment later, "I'm going home. I've had more than enough of this."</p><p>"So that's it?" says Harry, laughing harshly. "Seriously?"</p><p>"<em>Goodbye</em>, Harry."</p><p>He leaves, and Harry finally lets him go.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>v.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Fuck," he hisses, snatching his hand back from the cauldron and sticking his fingers in his mouth like a five-year-old. This is the third time today he's either burned or cut himself because he's too busy brooding to pay attention. This one's worse than the others, the top of his fingers having pressed fully against the blazing hot pewter, and he can already see the skin raising.</p><p>He goes to the supply shelf and takes down a vial of murtlap essence, dabbing his burnt hand with it.</p><p>"What, again?" says Mr Pratchett, laughter in his voice. Draco scowls. "I've told you to wear the gloves, Draco, that's what they're there for."</p><p>"I never usually need them," Draco mumbles, going back to the cauldron to check that it hasn't started over-boiling.</p><p>"You've been unfocused," says Mr Pratchett, casual, like he's just making an observation. He glances at Draco from over the top of his square spectacles, grins, and then looks back down at the order form he's going over. "Anything you'd like to talk about?"</p><p>"What?" Draco says before he can stop himself, taken off guard. His cheeks colour but Pratchett isn't looking at him. "No, I ... no. It's fine, just some personal things. It won't happen again."</p><p>"Well I'm not scolding you, Draco," Pratchett chuckles. "My hands used to be a lot prettier if you can believe it."</p><p>"My hands are fine," he insists stubbornly. And they usually are — he takes great care in them. He'd have <em> always </em>used gloves if he thought he was going to botch them up the way Pratchett's look, all gnarled and hardened with scar tissue. But he's the most precise and talented potioneer Draco's ever known besides Professor Snape and he considers himself lucky to have been taken under his wing.</p><p>"It's to do with the boyfriend, I'll assume?"</p><p>"No," Draco says through his teeth. Merlin, did <em> everyone </em>have to pry?</p><p>"Sounds like a yes to me," says Pratchett slyly. "Go on then, give us the story."</p><p>"There's no story," he says snappishly. Pratchett looks up again from the parchment and turns a lifted eyebrow on him, making Draco sigh. He tosses the cotton he's using and grabs a new one, soaking that in the murtlap and pressing it to his fingers again. "We broke up. A little over two months ago."</p><p>"He did it?"</p><p>"I did," says Draco. There's a light rustle as Pratchett sets the parchment down on the desk and removes his glasses, peering at Draco with those mysterious dark eyes of his that Draco can never quite get a read on. It reminds him unsettlingly of the way he'd felt whenever Dumbledore looked at him in sixth year. "It ... wasn't working out."</p><p>"I see," Pratchett says with a hum.</p><p>"We fought," Draco tells him, feeling absurdly as though he needs to defend himself.</p><p>"Couples fight."</p><p>"A lot," he emphasises. "All the time. About little things usually, but ..." He shrugs. When he takes the second cotton off he sees that the burn looks just as bad but it hurts a lot less. It's something of a relief, the physical pain. It's so much easier to deal with. "We're different people. <em> Too </em>different. There are so many things we can't talk about, so many things from my past, from his past, things that are too ... too painful, too difficult."</p><p>"So you decided that these things you feel you can't talk to him about, they outweighed the rest of it?"</p><p>"What rest of it?" Draco says facetiously. "There's nothing else. It was all physical, the taboo of it, being together when we'd hated each other so long. I loved him — I <em> do </em>love him — but at some point that isn't enough when you clearly don't get on well together. I'll move on and he'll move on and we'll both be better off."</p><p>"Maybe you're right," Pratchett concedes, his voice a little too airy and all-wise for Draco's taste. "But I tell you, all those times he came in here looking for you I never saw anyone so lovesick."</p><p>Draco laughs without humour. "Yeah well that's the thing with Harry," he says, putting the murtlap essence away and reluctantly grabbing the dragon-hide gloves hanging from a hook on the wall. "He has this bloody annoying way of making anyone he's talking about sound like the absolute <em> centre </em>of his world. I'm sure he looks just as repulsively lovesick when he's talking about his new girlfriend."</p><p>"Girlfriend?" Pratchett echoes, sounding for the first time taken aback. "It's only been two months you said, he's already with someone else?"</p><p>"That's right," Draco lilts, snatching up the stirring rod from the table and dipping it carefully into the simmering potion. He counts out four clockwise stirs and then sets it back down. "Perfect Potter, couldn't have stayed single long."</p><p>"Come now, Draco, you sound like a child when you say that," Pratchett laughs. Draco tenses, knowing it's proving the point to feel irritated but he can't help it.</p><p>"I'm not sure what you think is so funny."</p><p>"It's just so <em> silly.</em>"</p><p>"How's that?" Draco snaps, tossing one glove and then the other onto the table.</p><p>"Draco," he says in a voice that can only be called fatherly, coming over to him and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You love this boy and you're making up reasons not to be with him. That's exceedingly silly."</p><p>It's not something he'd been expecting and he looks at Pratchett without bothering to cover up his surprise.</p><p>"I'm not making anything up."</p><p>"Maybe not, but you're certainly putting a lot more weight on the bad things than the good ones. I understand that it frightens you." He drops his hand and takes off his glasses again, wiping them on his shirt instead of spelling them clean. "You have a rough history together. And if you truly did fight as often as you say then perhaps it <em> is </em> for the best, but I have a feeling you've exaggerated it a bit in your head, hm?"</p><p>Draco looks down, craving a cigarette suddenly. He lifts his unburned hand and rubs his eyes. He doesn't think he's been this mentally exhausted since he was seventeen.</p><p>"It doesn't matter," he says at last. "He's got a girlfriend now."</p><p>"Well," says Pratchett, "maybe you've learned a very difficult lesson for next time, then."</p><p>He feels sick, and he's afraid if they keep talking about it he'll start crying again.</p><p>"D'you mind if I go have a smoke?"</p><p>"Not at all," says Pratchett gently. "Take your time."</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>vi.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The knock on his door throws Draco off his counting and he drops the bitter root petal onto the table with a frustrated sigh. Fucking Pansy. He's planning the names he'll call her when he opens the door and sees not Pansy but a soaking wet Harry Potter standing there. He stares at him speechlessly a moment and then begins furiously repressing everything he's feeling.</p><p>"You're supposed to be at a highly publicised Quidditch match," he says.</p><p>"Yeah," Harry agrees, "but I decided to come here instead. I couldn't play, my head's not in the game."</p><p>Draco breathes deeply, fighting back the instinct to shout.</p><p>"Go away, Harry."</p><p>"I'm not going anywhere," he says. His hair is dripping in his face and his eyes are bright with determination. "Not until I say what I need to say."</p><p>"You didn't do that last week?"</p><p>"There's more."</p><p>Draco looks at him, standing there dripping wet and painfully sincere, and he wants to have the strength to turn him away but he doesn't.</p><p>"Dry yourself off," he says, and then turns to go back to the sitting room. Harry spells himself dry and follows, sitting in the armchair and watching Draco as he hops up on the windowsill and throws the panes open, then lights a cigarette.</p><p>"Look," says Harry. There's something in his voice that sounds like he's about to bare his soul. "I don't know how much clearer I can make this to you but I'm gonna do my best. I s'pose I <em> could </em>live without you, it'd be a bit dramatic to say I couldn't, but I'd rather I didn't have to start figuring out how." Draco leans his back against the side of the open window and fixes his gaze on a street lamp outside, the electricity inside of it buzzing and faltering the way he's come to associate with Muggle lights. He can see the rain in its faint glow. It's quite aesthetic, although he'd never have admitted that out loud. "Can you please look at me, Draco?"</p><p>He looks over at him, keeping his face expressionless, and lifts the cigarette to his lips again.</p><p>"I love you," Harry says firmly, standing up now. There seems to be an iron band squeezing Draco's heart. He keeps eye contact as Harry comes over to the window and sits down next to him where there's just enough room, even though it's damp. Draco pulls his feet in the tiniest bit to accommodate him. "I love you with —"</p><p>"Everything inside of you, yeah," Draco finishes for him, desperately tamping down on the emotion welling up in his throat. "You said. Don't think your girlfriend would like to hear that."</p><p>"My girlfriend?" A look of surprise so genuine crosses his face that Draco suddenly feels childish for bringing it up. "Draco, Melanie's not ... she's not my <em> girlfriend</em>. Don't be stupid. I mean, are you," he laughs, actually <em> laughs</em>, "are you kidding? We'd been broken up two months, I felt like having sex, that doesn't mean I'm <em> dating </em>anyone. Do you even know me at all?"</p><p>"Whatever," Draco says stubbornly, "that part is irrelevant anyway." It's not. He feels like crying with relief, in fact.</p><p>"Then let's talk about what <em> is </em> relevant." Harry grazes gentle fingers along Draco's ankle, letting the pads of them brush the bare skin above his sock. Draco lets it happen for only a few moments before pulling his foot in and averting his eyes back to the street. He draws on the cigarette just to give himself something else to focus on. "I know you couldn't stand it when we fought. I couldn't either. But, Draco ... it's bound to happen. It feels like so long since the war, since Hogwarts, but it hasn't been. It's not quite six years ago I was running round Britain trying to get rid of Voldemort while he camped out at your house. And we've only been together <em> two </em>of those years, we need time."</p><p>"For what?" Draco asks without looking at him.</p><p>"To figure out how to navigate that stuff," says Harry, and he can feel his gaze burning into him. "Everything. Our different personalities. How to talk to each other."</p><p>"We <em> can't </em> talk." Draco swallows thickly, meeting his eyes again even though it hurts. Even though he feels weak when he does it. "There's just some stuff we can't ... we can't talk about."</p><p>"Draco," Harry says, voice low, "you can talk to me about anything. I know we've tried to avoid that stuff, it's really fucking hard. There's so much shit in our past, so many things between us that are fucking terrifying to talk about, but I know that I, at least, am willing to figure it out together. I’m <em>not</em> willing to let that be the reason I lose you."</p><p>It’s hard to hear, only Draco doesn’t know why. His chest hurts, not because it's bad but because it's too good. It's more than he deserves, really.</p><p>"That's not even the whole thing," Draco says weakly.</p><p>"Then what is it?" Harry asks. He's frowning, concentrating on Draco with his whole being, and that feeling is just as intense as it always is. "What did I do that made you so unhappy?"</p><p>Harry's earnest face, the pain in his eyes, it breaks Draco's heart. It isn't him, that's the thing. It could never be him.</p><p>"You didn't do anything, Harry," he says softly. "I just — sometimes I get ... insecure, I dunno. About you. Us." His cheeks burn with embarrassment, he can't <em> believe </em>he's just said that out loud, but it feels quite paradoxically good at the same time. Relieving.</p><p>"What d'you mean? Insecure how?"</p><p>Draco swallows. He opens the screen and flicks the cigarette out the window and reaches for another one, but Harry stops him with a hand on his wrist.</p><p>"Draco," he says. His voice is deep, touching something in Draco that makes him feel like he's a dam about one second from bursting. He looks into those green eyes and thinks that maybe he's been insane to try and convince himself he could live without them. "Tell me what you're afraid is gonna happen."</p><p>"You're gonna lose interest," Draco admits. His throat is tight and he's terrified he might start crying. "You're eventually gonna want someone you can relate to better, who you have more in common with. Someone who's ... who's as emotionally vulnerable as you are. I'm not like that, Harry."</p><p>Harry slides his hand down to Draco's and links their fingers together, bringing it to his mouth and pressing a kiss to it.</p><p>"You're exquisite, Draco," he says. Draco feels the tears finally start welling up and one slips free from the corner of his eye. "I fell in love with you because it's fascinating trying to figure you out, seeing all your different sides. And when I do get to see you vulnerable, when you <em> let </em> me see you that way, there's nothing like it. You think I want someone with no surprises? Someone who likes exactly the same things as me, can't introduce to me new stuff? Someone who doesn't challenge me?" He shakes his head. "I can't think of anything more boring. And all that messy shit from our pasts ... I know we've avoided it. But, Draco, if you're ready to start trying to talk about all of that then so am I. You can talk to me about <em> anything</em>," he says again, squeezing Draco's hand. "And I could never lose interest. I swear to you, we can figure these things out. All of them."</p><p>Draco lets the words settle for a moment, and then he tugs gently at Harry's hand. Harry lets out a soft, sweet chuckle and leans forward, smiling against Draco's lips before kissing him. It's gentle at first, an unhurried reunion of two people who'd been apart too long, their lips moving together in a deliberately slow and exploratory way that deepens quickly. Harry's hand moves to his face, familiarly scratchy and warm, and Draco's fingers curl around his wrist. He's needed this in the worst way. That had truly been the worst part of the past two months: he'd needed comfort and safety, but it's Harry who's his safe place. The irony could have been astounding if it wasn't so painful.</p><p>"I missed you," he says into Harry's mouth. Harry presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, his cheek, and then pulls back enough that they can look at each other.</p><p>"I missed you too. That was a shit two and a half months you put me through."</p><p>"At least you were having sex."</p><p>Harry laughs and kisses him again, thumbing over Draco's cheekbone. "Yeah. Wasn't all that satisfying though."</p><p>"Did you think of me?" Draco asks.</p><p>He laughs again, like he thinks it's a joke. The smile fades a bit when he realises it's not, and he looks equally as fascinated as amused.</p><p>"When I was fucking her, you mean?" he says after a moment. Draco's pulse leaps and he's sure Harry can hear him breathing a little harder. It always takes him by surprise when Harry says things like that, and he imagines it always will. He nods, mostly because he can't find his voice suddenly. "Yeah, I did."</p><p>There's a knock on the door, and Draco had been so lost in Harry that the sharp sound makes him jump, heart kicking into overdrive.</p><p>"Holy shit," he breathes, which prompts yet another laugh from Harry. His hand goes to his chest and he takes a breath. "Merlin's fucking ... if that's Pansy —"</p><p>"It'll be Ron or Hermione, I bet," says Harry, jumping lightly down from the sill. "They'll have figured out where I fucked off to by now."</p><p>"The game," Draco reminds himself, blinking owlishly. He's still a bit dazed, not to mention turned on and desperate for more of Harry's attention. Ravenous, even. Harry may have been having sex, but Draco hadn't.</p><p>"Yeah, the game," Harry says a bit dully. "It's <em> really </em>not a big deal, Kirschkorn'll be glad to play. Let me get rid of them, I'll be right back."</p><p>Privately Draco thinks Harry's probably underestimating how royally ticked off the team's captain will be considering Harry's about a hundred times more talented than Kirschkorn, not to mention a fan favourite, but he doesn't mention it out loud because he's exactly selfish enough to keep England's most beloved Quidditch player here with him in his flat where he can kiss him.</p><p>He hops down himself and grabs his pack of cigarettes, something that's becoming dangerously habitual. He can hear their voices as he heads to his bedroom and stops to listen, hidden by a wall. </p><p>"I couldn't focus, Hermione," Harry's saying to her, the same excuse he'd given Draco. "I didn't wanna be there."</p><p>"So you thought it'd be a good time to barge in on Draco again?" she asks, exasperated. "Harry, I don't —"</p><p>"He's fine," Harry cuts her off. "<em>We're </em>fine. Or ... we will be."</p><p>There's a pause. "You two talked?"</p><p>"Yeah."</p><p>"And you're ... what, you're back together? Just like that?"</p><p>Draco waits with baited breath to hear Harry's answer, as curious as Hermione must be. There's another, longer pause, and he'd have given anything to see Harry's face, to see what's making him hesitate.</p><p>"I dunno," Harry says quietly. "I think so. I <em>hope</em> so."</p><p>Draco goes silently to his bedroom, trying to figure out if he agrees with that answer. Is that all it takes, just that one kiss and some pretty words? Is he so desperate for Harry that he'll abandon his caution, render pointless the two and a half months of suffering he'd put in to ensure heartbreak — much <em>worse </em>heartbreak — won't come later? </p><p>He feels hands slipping around him from behind and lets it happen, shivering a little when Harry's arms close around him completely and he pulls Draco back against his chest. There are lips behind his ear, soft and sweet, touching the spot where only Harry knows he's got a tiny looping line tattoo of a stag because he usually has a Glamour on it. He'd gotten it one night in Paris, at a <em>Muggle </em>parlour of all things, on a spontaneous trip they'd taken when they both had the weekend off. This had been extremely early on in the relationship, when everything was new still and they were obsessed with each other, unable to get tired of it, fucking constantly and not fighting at all. He'd been drunk on Harry's wildly intense passion, on the feeling of being in love, and he'd wanted to absorb that into himself somehow, mark himself with it, make it so there was a part of Harry etched onto his body.</p><p>And now there is.</p><p>"You're ruminating," Harry says against his skin. He slides his hand over one of Harry's and scratches his nails lightly along the top. "You're still not sure."</p><p>"I've never really been a risk-taker." He tilts his head a little, giving Harry better access to his neck. He feels Harry grin against the skin and take advantage. The arms around his middle are still tight, and he can feel very clearly Harry's erection stiffening against his arse. "I dated a few men before you, I never told you much about them. They were ... I don't know." It's hard to find the right words, especially with lips on his neck. "You're different. You're not something I can control."</p><p>"You don't want something you can control," Harry says in a low voice against his ear. Draco shudders and lets his eyes fall closed. "You want something that drives you fucking mad now and then."</p><p>"I'd have to be pretty mad in the first place to want something like that."</p><p>"Maybe you are."</p><p>"Maybe <em>you </em>are."</p><p>Harry laughs. His breath tickles Draco's neck.</p><p>"I'm not disagreeing," he says. "You used to like it, though."</p><p>Those words make Draco's heart hurt. He turns slowly in Harry's arms and looks up at him, into his eyes and then down to his mouth, and when he kisses him it feels a little like giving in. He breaks away so he can pull off Harry's Quidditch robes and then dives back in, mapping out the warm, tanned skin of his chest under his cotton T-shirt with eager hands, fingering every small scar whose location he knows by heart, whose shapes and textures he'd memorised a long time ago.</p><p>"Come here," says Harry, breaking away and taking Draco's hand. He pulls him over to the bed, settling himself back against the pillows and tugging Draco down into his lap. He pulls Draco's shirt over his head and then latches onto his neck, and Draco pushes his fingers into Harry's untamable mess of black hair, head falling back as goosebumps cover his arms. Harry is a warm, solid, eternal weight beneath him, his hands are anchors on Draco's waist, his lips excruciatingly familiar everywhere he presses them to Draco's burning skin. He is the balance Draco has been missing in his life for over two months, the only sanity in a world that is endlessly, <em>brutally </em>chaotic and oftentimes terrifying.</p><p>He grinds down against the hardness of Harry's cock and feels the vibrations of the resultant moan against his neck, the grip on his waist tightening and pulling him closer. Moving his hands to Harry's cheeks, he lifts his face so he can look down into those soulful green eyes, shining even now with the sort of painfully earnest vulnerability that leaves the person on the receiving end of them weak-kneed and breathless. And then, because he can't take it anymore, he leans down and kisses him, mouth opening hungrily against Harry's, fingers digging into his face although he's only peripherally aware of doing it. He feels like a plant opening up for rain after a long time in the sun, dry and brittle and waiting for water to bring it back to life.</p><p>It takes only minutes for desperation to start making Draco sloppy; he's panting into Harry's mouth more than he's actually <em>kissing</em> him, most of his focus further down where he's rubbing himself against Harry, trying for friction that just isn't enough, not even with Harry's hands on his arse, leading the movements. It's really only now, on top of him, moving with him, feeling, smelling, tasting, <em>consuming</em> him that Draco comes to an understanding of how broken he'd been without it. It can't be healthy, to need someone this much, but god, he does. He needs Harry like he needs his wand, like he needs his arms and legs and his furiously beating heart. He's trembling with the weight of it, and he knows Harry can tell because of the way his hands move up Draco's back, sturdy and soothing.</p><p>"Draco," he whispers, bringing one of those hands around to cup his face, to make Draco look at him. "Relax. You're shaking."</p><p>"I need you," Draco says. His hands curl against Harry's shirt. "Please."</p><p>"I'm right here." Harry stretches his neck to kiss him again, deliberately slow, and it helps Draco to centre himself, to come back down from whatever frantic precipice he'd been building himself up to. "Sit up a second, let me get your clothes off."</p><p>Draco complies, lifting himself up so that Harry can undo his flies and pull down his trousers, Draco getting them the rest of the way off himself. They work on Harry next, and only once they're both naked does Draco lower himself again, toes curling at the way it feels when their cocks press together. Licking his hand in a crude gesture that makes Draco feel a little faint, Harry wraps it around both of them and starts wanking them slowly, dropping a kiss on Draco's chin. Draco rocks helplessly into the motion, anchoring himself with hands on Harry's shoulders and his eyes slipping closed, because it's all so <em>much </em>and he just wants to feel it, every pass of Harry's hand over the head of his cock, squeezing and smearing pre-come and then sliding back down. Harry feels hot and hard against him, bigger and thicker than Draco is, and as unbelievable as it feels he needs so much more.</p><p>"Harry —" he starts, but Harry kisses him quiet and takes his hand off them, reaching around instead to Draco's arse and sliding his fingers over Draco's clenching hole. They're sticky and wet where they probe at him and Harry still manages to be gentle even when he foregoes just one finger, pressing in with two and burying them completely. Draco, who feels short of breath, digs his nails into Harry's shoulders and kisses him. It stings a little — he hasn't had sex in over two months, since two days before he'd shouted Harry out of his flat with furious tears in his eyes and a cruel assertion that he was miserable in this relationship — but he likes the sting, likes to have some sort of physical manifestation, some <em>symbol</em>, of the pain they'd endured on their way back to each other.</p><p>Harry moves his fingers in a slow rhythm, pressing in deep on every inward stroke, his other hand a steadying weight on Draco's hip, their mouths sliding wetly and purposefully together. Harry's tongue tastes like whisky, as if he'd taken a shot or two before coming here, and to know that Harry — strong, resilient, bullheaded, outrageously brave — had needed that liquid help to be able to do this makes him a little more human.</p><p>Draco forgets that sometimes. That for everything Harry is, he's still human.</p><p>"I'm good," he says, breathing it into Harry's mouth. "Please."</p><p>Harry pecks his lips and pulls his fingers out, replacing them with the head of his cock a moment later. He whispers the spell against Draco's lips that coats his cock in lube and, steadying himself on Harry's shoulders again, he starts lowering himself, head falling back when the tip pushes past that ring of muscle, stretching him quite a little bit more than two fingers had prepared him for. The wet heat of Harry's mouth is on his neck suddenly, sucking gentle kisses into his skin as he sinks down further until he's fully seated in Harry's lap, so deeply inside of him he's begun shivering again.</p><p>He pulls Harry's glasses off and throws them aside on the bed, pushing his fringe back and drinking him in like he's seeing him for the first time in years. Harry lets him look, saying nothing, candles reflecting their flickering flames in his green eyes. His scar is beautiful and terrifying, the point of inception right at his hairline and branching out into thin, haphazard lines — like lightning — across half his forehead. He kisses it, and then the apple of Harry's cheek, and then his mouth.</p><p>Harry starts grinding up into him and Draco eases into the movement, rocking his hips slowly, his cock pressed between them. He ruts himself against Harry's chest, sliding through his own pre-come and moaning softly at the feeling of muscle. There's no sound other than that of the rain tapping against the bedroom window and their panting breaths, and in Draco's head, the sound of his racing heart. Beneath his hand he can feel Harry's too, strong and steady and perennial. </p><p>It's when he lifts up a little and sinks back down that Harry's cock presses up against his prostate and Draco lets out a small whimpering noise. He does it again, fucking himself with declining finesse on the thick shaft inside of him while Harry runs his hands up and down Draco's thighs, watching him unmovingly, worshipfully. Sweat starts beading on his back, his collarbone, his forehead, and it's with harsh, unsteady breaths that he's working himself hectically towards an orgasm building deep in his gut.</p><p>"Stop, stop," Harry breathes suddenly, putting pressure on Draco's waist to still him and kissing him softly. Draco is practically vibrating with the need to come, his cock throbbing painfully between them, the friction from their sliding chests not <em>quite </em>enough. "Lift up," he says, and Draco does so on shaky thighs.</p><p>Meeting Draco's eyes, Harry bends his knees and starts thrusting up into him, pressing in all the way and sliding back out, setting a pace that makes Draco's insides turn to liquid. He wraps his arms around Harry's shoulders and buries his face in his neck, holding on as Harry begins moving faster, fucking up into him with heavy, punishing thrusts that batter his prostate.</p><p>"Look at me," Harry says against his ear, digging his fingers into the meat of Draco's arse. "I wanna watch you come."</p><p>Draco moans against Harry's neck — salty with sweat — before forcing himself up and slipping a hand between them to start pulling at his poor, neglected cock. He tries to keep his eyes open but can't, squeezing them shut instead and letting his head fall forward, knowing Harry's watching him, letting that fuel his arousal. </p><p>He comes with a weak, tormented cry, squeezing over the head of his cock as it starts pulsing, and Harry picks up the speed of his thrusts, slamming into him while Draco shivers and convulses through an orgasm that leaves him unable to hold himself up. It's only Harry that keeps him steady, and before he's even come down from it fully Harry's manoeuvring him onto his back, spreading his legs, and sinking back inside him. He isn't gentle anymore, pounding his cock into Draco like he's lost his mind, skin slapping wetly, and finally Draco feels him start coming, releasing a broken noise as he does. He drops his forehead against Draco's collarbone and keeps thrusting into his body relentlessly, working himself through it, only stuttering to a stop after what feels like a full minute. </p><p>After another few seconds of panting breaths and heaving chests and the rain beating the window, Harry starts laughing.</p><p>"Barmy," Draco mutters. Harry kisses him. He's out of breath.</p><p>"I just think it's funny I'm meant to be playing Quidditch right now."</p><p>"Glad your mind is already back on work."</p><p>Harry takes hold of his chin, squeezing his jaw playfully, hardly any pressure, and Draco rolls his eyes.</p><p>"Will you shut up?" says Harry. He's grinning, over-bright.</p><p>"That's <em>rude</em>."</p><p>"Well you're annoying."</p><p>"You're stupid."</p><p>"You're a brat."</p><p>"Get off me," Draco says, pushing weakly at Harry, fighting back his own smile with everything in him. It's not all that successful.</p><p>"Tell me you love me."</p><p>Draco's heart gives a funny thud and there's a small contraction in his stomach as he looks up into Harry's eyes and sees the open uncertainty there. The pleading, the hopefulness. He <em>does </em>love him, that's not the problem. Even after their short talk earlier and that rather emotional sex, he still feels scared to say it, to mend the bridge and give himself over to the unknown, follow his heart instead of his head for once in his life.</p><p>He searches Harry's face for another moment, everything about it so familiar, so comforting. He could spend his entire life here beneath him and be happy ... the problem is that he <em>can't</em>. He can't lock Harry up in a room with him because he's scared he'll stray. He can't have every part of him, as much as he wants it. The whole <em>world </em>wants a piece of Harry, and maybe that makes it even more difficult. Sharing him, <em>always </em>sharing him in some way.</p><p>"I do," he says, all too aware that Harry's still inside him, that his come is leaking out of his arse. Harry looks conflicted, and Draco knows it's because he didn't actually <em>say </em>it. He has before, many times, only it feels a lot harder right now for some reason.</p><p>Harry doesn't press it. He searches Draco's face another moment before leaning down to kiss him and then pulling out. The air has shifted a little from the heady playfulness of just minutes before, but maybe that's because they're both coming down from their highs. Or perhaps because he'd been unable to say 'I love you' ... either one, surely. Harry gets up and pulls on his pants, carding his fingers through his hair and grabbing his glasses off the bed. Then he spells them both clean.</p><p>"Grab me a cigarette, will you?" Draco requests, pointing to the pack on his wardrobe. Harry hesitates but does it, handing Draco's wand to him along with the cigarette. He sits down on the bed again and Draco can feel him watching as he sparks it to life.</p><p>"When did you start smoking so often?" he asks. The question takes Draco by surprise, feeling irrationally as though Harry's accusing him of something. </p><p>He gets up and, cigarette dangling from his lips, pulls his pants on as well. He goes over to the window and blows the smoke out of it. Predictably, Harry follows him, waiting for an answer. Draco feels a very small twinge of irritation that's almost habitual in nature, as if his body had chosen to react before his mind even had a chance to process anything.</p><p>"What does it matter?" he says eventually. Harry shrugs.</p><p>"Just a question. You used to say you hated the smell."</p><p>It feels like another accusation. As if Harry is intentionally drawing attention to how unsteady Draco's been since their breakup.</p><p>"What's your point, Harry?" he says, looking at him. There's a moment of silence, and then Harry shrugs again.</p><p>"Don't have one, I guess."</p><p>Very gently, he cups one of Draco's cheeks and leans in to kiss the other one, then goes back to the bed where he starts pulling the rest of his clothing on.</p><p>"Are you leaving?" Draco asks. There's a note of apprehension in his voice he wishes he could hide.</p><p>"I have to go talk to Buckley," says Harry as he's zipping his flies. He's the captain of the English National Team, a very tall, very muscular and somewhat ill-tempered man nearing his thirties who is nevertheless a phenomenal Chaser. He doesn't usually give Harry a hard time — this is partly, Draco knows, because Harry is <em>very </em>good and very valuable to the team, being the reason they win most games. It's also because he's Harry Potter, although Draco has learned that pointing this out, even in a teasing capacity, doesn't sit well with Harry at all. "I'll come back after, though, if you want."</p><p>"Sure," says Draco. He doesn't want to sound overly enthusiastic, which is sort of stupid seeing as he'd been fucking himself on Harry's cock about five minutes ago. "If <em>you </em>want."</p><p>Harry flashes him a slightly uncertain smile but if he has any qualms, he doesn't voice them. When he's straightened himself out enough, he grabs his Quidditch robes from near the door and puts those on as well, glancing briefly at the open window and the downpour beyond it.</p><p>"Right," he says. "Well, I'll see you in a couple hours then."</p><p>When he leaves, Draco feels oddly hollow.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>vii.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>"Look at this," Harry spits, tossing the <em>Daily Prophet </em>onto the table with a disgusted look. "What'll they do, I wonder, if I resign?"</p><p>"Quit being so dramatic."</p><p>"I'm not being dramatic!" yells Harry, sounding <em>exactly </em>like Draco remembers him sounding back at Hogwarts when he'd been righteously offended by something. "I should, you know. Resign. It's pathetic."</p><p>"Harry," Draco drawls, "it's the first game you've lost this season and it's the first time Kirschkorn's played. I'm no statistician but that seems correlative to me."</p><p>"Did you even hear what you just said?" Harry bites out. Draco feels his jaw clench. "It's the first time he's played this season. I'd be jittery too, maybe Buckley ought to let him have a go more often."</p><p>"He's a reserve Seeker, Harry."</p><p>"<em>So</em>?" There's an untouched plate of eggs and bacon in front of Harry. Draco points his wand at it and casts a Warming Charm, since it's clearly gone cold. Not that it matters. "He deserves to play sometimes, he's good. And look at this," he gestures at the <em>Prophet </em>like it's a rotting carcass on the kitchen table. "The whole thing's a smear on Kirschkorn, it says I was '<em>ill </em>'." He scoffs. "I expect Buckley told the reporter that. He did tear me a new arsehole in private, though. Least there's that, I s'pose."</p><p>Draco rolls his eyes behind his mug as he takes a sip of tea. "No one will care anymore in two weeks when you win your next match," he says. "Relax, Harry."</p><p>"How can this not bug you?"</p><p>There it is again — a twinge of annoyance. The feeling like Harry's accusing him of something. Except unlike last night, when he'd been able to push it aside in order to enjoy Harry's company when he'd come back from seeing Buckley, the twinge turns to a solid pit of irritation.</p><p>"I don't know, because I'm not a bleeding-heart Gryffindor with a stiffy for justice? Easy enough."</p><p>"Well bully for you then, must be nice not having to worry about anyone else."</p><p>Draco glares at him and Harry seems immediately to regret it, because some of the anger leaves his face.</p><p>"Sorry," he says, voice pitched low. "I'm just ... it's really frustrating."</p><p>"Oh yeah, I'm sure," says Draco scathingly. He can see Harry's jaw muscle twitch. The thing is he <em>knows </em>how much Harry hates the limelight, hates any praise he doesn't feel he deserves, yet right now Draco's annoyed enough to use that against him. "Terribly frustrating being the darling of the media, skipping huge matches just because you can, knowing your name alone will guarantee you aren't sacked."</p><p>Harry stares at him. Then:</p><p>"What the fuck, Draco?"</p><p>"What, like it's not true?"</p><p>"What the hell are you getting pissy with <em>me </em>for? Was I dreaming or did we make up last night?"</p><p>It's incredible, really — not even twenty-four hours and they're fighting again. He could almost laugh if it wasn't so horrible.</p><p>"Not as well as we thought, clearly," says Draco bitterly. He thinks this must be it, the proof they needed that it was stupid to have even tried. To keep pretending they can make this work when <em>clearly —</em></p><p>But then something unbelievable happens: Harry stands up, and he comes around to Draco's seat. He grabs his hand; before Draco knows what he's going to do Harry's already pulled him to his feet, and then he's wrapped up in his arms, pressed against Harry's chest, completely enveloped in one of those big stupid bear hugs he'd been missing. There's a swell of emotion so suddenly he can't even contemplate suppressing it. He circles his own arms around Harry's waist and buries his face in his shoulder, all of the tension leaving his body. Suddenly it all feels so silly. And preventable.</p><p>"I'm sorry," he mumbles into Harry's jumper. Harry squeezes him and Draco huffs out a short laugh.</p><p>"I'm not fighting with you anymore," says Harry, pulling back. His arms are still around Draco, hands pressed into the dip of his back, keeping them close. "Not over stupid shit like this, at least. I mean, I know we're bound to fight, but ... not like this, not anymore. I'm sorry too, I get caught up."</p><p>"It happens ... every <em>day</em>, Harry," says Draco softly. If there's a note of pleading on his face, in his voice, he only hopes Harry doesn't notice it. "D'you really believe we can keep nipping it in the bud every time?"</p><p>"Yes," he says without missing a beat. "You know, I ..." he rolls his eyes, "I wanted it to be more of a surprise, but all things considered ..." Oddly, his cheeks gain a touch of colour, and for no reason Draco's heart suddenly starts picking up. "I have a ring. For you. I got it ... little over four months ago, I guess."</p><p>"A ... ring?" Draco asks, feeling winded.</p><p>"Yeah. You know, an engagement ring? Er — I don't know, is that more of a Muggle thing? Engagement rings? I never thought about it ..."</p><p>"It's not," Draco chokes out. His chest is very tight.</p><p>"Oh ... good. Well. Erm — yeah, I ... I got you a ring. I wasn't ... you know, I wasn't planning on asking you <em>soon </em>soon, but ..." He smiles. It's charming and a little dorky and it makes Draco feel as light as air. </p><p>"But what?" he prompts, wanting to hear it. Harry's smile grows.</p><p>"<em>But</em> eventually I was planning to ask you to marry me. One day, when, you know, we feel like we're ready. I just ... I already knew, I bought the ring so I'd have it when I knew the time was right. Because I do believe we can make it, it never even occurred to me that we couldn't."</p><p>"I think I'd like that," says Draco after a moment of digesting this impossible news. Harry laughs, eyes crinkling endearingly, and he leans in to kiss him.</p><p>"Well good, because now it's coming when you least expect it," he says, and with a last kiss pressed to the corner of Draco's mouth Harry lets go of him and returns to the table, where he starts eating without glancing at the <em>Prophet</em>. </p><p>"Ooh, I'm terrified, Potter," Draco says in a childish voice, which causes Harry to snort into his tea and spray it all over his face.</p><p>Amazingly, he finds that he can picture this in five, ten, <em>fifteen </em>years. Eating breakfast and making Harry laugh because it warms Draco's heart to see it, leaving windows open when it's raining because Harry likes the smell, yelling at him when he says something stupid and then letting Harry kiss it better later.</p><p>"Harry?"</p><p>"Yeah?" His eyes are closed, dabbing at them with a towel he'd wandlessly <em>Accio</em>-ed.</p><p>"I love you."</p><p>Harry's eyes pop open and the way he smiles at Draco makes him wonder how he'd ever thought it wasn't worth fighting for.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Find me at <a href="https://lazywonderlvnd.tumblr.com/">lazywonderlvnd.tumblr.com</a> ♡</p></blockquote></div></div>
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